Beginning My Day

Driving my bicycle into dawn
after miles of detours
in the sorrowful night
of a runaway child
with a white full moon
as my only friend
darkness leaves
when December snows
on an unplowed field
over the unbaked earth
after a first breath of icy winter
shadows pass by me
with nocturnal silence
as a madman
with a hard reddish face
bandaged up from Siberian exile
gives out crazy directions
on the broken bridge
and I want a glass of tea
from my Aunt Manya
who read me Dostoyevsky
on her day bed
and I find her apartment
in the windswept day